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Alright, the only thing i need to decide is weather sign up's create one player or two which would both be centre halfs for the country, this would allow them to form a partnership and guide their team to unlikely greatness.

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Alright, the only thing i need to decide is weather sign up's create one player or two which would both be centre halfs for the country, this would allow them to form a partnership and guide their team to unlikely greatness.

I would think that it's better to get each person to create one player, then you would get more people signing up.

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After seeing the success of the international strikers contest's and euro sign-up I have an idea for like a champions league sign-up. The idea is that 32 people sign-up as a 27 year old striker and will randomly be given one of the champions league teams. Then points will be scored and tables made like other sign-ups on their performance in the champions league and the UEFA Cup if they finish third in the champions league group. Bonus points would be given for international caps and goals. This idea on its own is very simple but the twist is that at the end of every year the season would be started again and each player gets given a different team - this would give everyone a chance at being a bigger team. I'm not sure if anything like this has been done before and if it has been then i'm sorry but what does everyone think

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The FM08 - Gone in 20 Seconds - The Short Challenges Thread has got me thinking. Short, situation based challenges is something we haven't really made the most of in this forum. Is it about time to try and produce a number of them each which could be collected together in a stickied thread? Each challenge could be in its own thread but it would be really nice to have a list, a bit like the guide to the challenges that was in the old forum header.

It might be something to think about for FM09 but I think this is something we should really consider.

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Guest roberto922

Guest roberto922

Yeah really good idea Dafuge and it's one that I feel would benefit the CSE Forum as most of the people on here atm are IMO people that play a helluva lot so obviously if the challenges are short more casual gamers will be more likely to play. I'll be happy to post a few if you give me instructions on how to upload big files for free as I only know how to upload pictures.

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It's a fine idea dafuge. The beauty of it is that these challenges could easily be derived from situations arising in peoples' save games, without the need for 'engineering' them through editors or whatever. There might be a place for that too though.

Thus, if you spot a club that is in administration and heading for the drop say, it would be perfect for this. Or, a three way tussle for a league or promotion - take one of them on and see how you do. Equally, longer terms ones could be involved, eg - in 2018, Norwich (say) find themselves languishing in the BSS - can you restore them to their former *cough* glory?

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definately an area with bags of potential. short, quick challenges could be light relief for people stuck in long games, particularly if 'promoted' in the right way. may well bring in a few more people to the forum.....

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I agree that the short situation challenges would be a great idea. Everyone starting in the same situtation and seeing how differently people will deal with the same game makes it much easier to directly compare how good players are.

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It reminds me of those dark days when all the management simulation action I got was LMA Manager on the PlayStation - there were 'scenario' based challenges there ranging from a few games (3 games to beat the drop, 3 games to win the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League etc) to a few seasons (back-to-back promotions for example).

As SI will never hard-code such things into the game themselves, it could be cool if we could swop these sceanrios when they come up as bermybhoy suggested.

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Yeah I think these short sharp scenario challenges could be a real hit.

I'm sure between quite a few of us we can come up with some good scenarios. If they were all put together as a collection, then quite conceivably SI could flag this up and advertise these scenarios on a wider forum basis (at least put the word 'scenario' in this forum).

I'm sure there are loads of people who would download them if they were accessible and well advertised.

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I've been chatting to Cleon about this, it is something he has done in the past on the tactics and GPTG forums. We are thinking about having a big collaboration for FM09 and make a really big thing of it, which will probably involve the input of a large number of people.

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I used to do fortnightly or monthly senarios in the tactics forum, we had a lot of interest in them. So its something me and Dafuge are discussing currently to see what we can do for FM09. So I cant see any major problems to stop this happening, all we need to do is decide how this will happen

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Is it worth testing it out for a month or two just now with the current version, particularly to see the kinda quality the great unwashed can come up with themselves?

There's already this thread which is showing the sorts of things that people can set up. I think if we are to open this up to ideas from people across multiple forums we will get some great ideas, plus there will also be the input from the moderators and possibly SI, so this has the potential to be huge.

I think it is best that we keep things on hold until FM09, if this is marketed in the right way it has the potential to be massive and I think the release of a new game would be the best time to unleash it.

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I have had what I think is quite a good idea for a challenge, my concerns are chiefly that a) The release of FM09 isn't that far away, but then if it proved any kind of success the challenge could just be re-launched. b) The challenge is too complicated, and wouldn't attract much interest. I will outline roughly what it entails, but bear in mind that this is not the challenge in full, and it has been quite well planned out in my head.

It would most likely be called "Mike's Flee to a Small Nation Challenge", or something similar.

To make it so that there is as little advantage as possible to people who may have a higher specification computer, you may not "Load all players" from any nations, though Database Size is entirely up to you. The amount of divisions you load from each country is also your own choice, but bear in mind you will probably need to go fairly low down in your Big Nation. You should be able to get a League Two/BSP job in England, and the parallels across the other Big Nations.

The idea is as follows: You start off as an Unemployed Manager of the Nationality of whichever Big Nation you chose. Your first task is to get a job in the Big Nation. I would say at this stage that past experience should probably be at Semi-Pro Footballer, to make sure you can get some lower league job. Once you are employed, you must get yourself sacked. There is no time limit for this, but the idea is that you disgrace yourself in your home country, and then flee to a small nation. After winning domestic success in all three of your small nations, you must return to the SAME CLUB from which you were originally sacked, and win the domestic title in the Big Nation.

So the format would be something like this:

Stage 1

-Start off as an unemployed ex-semi pro footballer.

-Get a job in your chosen big nation.

-Get sacked from this job.

-It is advised that you are not too ridiculous and unrealistic in this respect, but this can be surprisingly good fun, devising tactics that will fail, but not fail spectacularly can be quite amusing.

-Once you have hit the unemployment heap (there's no time limit), go to Stage 2.

Stage 2

-Being a laughing stock in your home country, you now flee to one of your chosen small nations, in search of redemption. So, you take any job which takes your fancy. It doesn't matter which country, which division, as long as you get a job in one of the small nations.

-Now that you have a job, it is your task to win the highest Domestic League in all three of your chosen small nations, and to get your manager reputation to rise to Continental (This should probably come with the success if you have completed all three nations, but if not then repeated successes should get you there anyway).

-You may jump between jobs and nations as you please, but until you have won the title in all three leagues, you CANNOT return to your chosen big nation, no matter how low the job is. This is the extent of your disgrace.

-You have no obligation to honour any contracts, if a job in a higher league comes along then feel free to apply for it and try and get your domestic title quicker, but bear in mind that sometimes you may not get the job, and then you will likely be sacked for your disloyalty!

-When, and only when, you have successfully proved your ability in all three small nations and got your reputation up to Continental, you may return to your chosen Big Nation.

Stage 3

-The trouble is, you HAVE to return to the same club you were at before. Getting the job is unlikely to be an issue with your newly acquired reputation, but then there is the problem that they may have gone up or down divisions, and you must wait for the job to become free/available.

-Take over the club when possible. Once you have achieved this, you must rise to the top of your Big Nation's Highest Domestic League, and win the title.

-You may have advantages in that your club has managed to do some of the hard work for you, and already achieved a couple of promotions. On the other hand, there is also a danger that they have been relegated, or worse still, relegated out of the lowest playable league. If this happens, then you will have to hope that their reputation can get them back up again. Feel free to save on whatever date it is that determines which clubs come back up again, and reload until they return. If after several attempts they still don't come back, then you will have to make do and take over any job you can find in the lowest loaded league of your Big Nation you have, and win the League with them instead.

-Once you have won the Domestic League in your Big Nation, then congrats, your disgrace is over and the challenge is complete!

International Management would not be allowed, but I suppose if you had won all three domestic titles but still needed to boost your Reputation to Continental/were waiting for the job to come up, then it would be allowed.

Presumably I would in theory apply the usual rules to this challenge, such as no cheating via FM Scout and such tools, and the posting of a profile to make sure they have selected the correct reputation would be needed.

Still, feedback would be nice, I want to know if you think there is any point in starting it so near to FM09's release (And it would be a fairly long-term challenge), and whether there would be any interest in it, as it is a fairly complicated challenge, and I'm not sure if I've explained it very well. Any general advice you could give me that you think would help improve it would be great too! Even if you just think it is a terrible idea, and I shouldn't bother, then that's helpful!

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Hmm I'm not sure. Seeing as you're starting off with Regional Reputation anyway (In theory, this is suspect to change), and by the time you've won three domestic titles I think you'd be more or less at Continental Reputation, as you'd have had games in Europe as well presumably to have gotten to that point. I've been looking at people's manager profiles in Gundo's Challenge to see how long it takes to hit Continental Reputation, and generally they seem to manage it after a couple of title wins, so as you have the bonus of being Regional as opposed to Unproven at the start then I think you'd get there anyway.

However, anyone who has more experience with these things and knows what they have achieved to reach certain Reputations, then that would be very handy. Thanks for the input though Frazza Pee.

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Guest roberto922

Right then I have a new idea, could be a big hit, could get flop of the year at the awards.

Basically I've been leaving a game to holiday while I've slept/not been on my laptop. I am now in 2186 .

Basically I want to expand on the fact that a few people have posted a game from a 100 odd years into the future and make it into a series of challenges.

I'll post a couple of examples in a minute.

I was thinking maybe for one month release challenges from this one (England) whilst holidaying a game in another country ready for the next month. The challenges would be weekly and the years would vary, so 1 month it would be 2186 and the next it could be 2016.

Right then now that my games loaded up I can post a couple of examples:

2186 - Liverpool are in League Two after years of struggling, bring them back up to the top. A challenge like that could last a month due to the size of it I feel.

(on a save that I haven't made yet so it's completely random) 2016 - Real Madrid have just been relegated to Segunda Liga, bring the Kings of Madrid back up at the first time of asking.

Obviously a few people have limited computers meaning that they would struggle running the games in Large DBs so I was thinking of putting them in small DBs and then keep the years limited to a maximum of about 2050 after the first one.

Any opinions and constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated

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I think that's the sort of idea that can work provided you can consistently keep up with putting interesting challenges out there. Its probably harder to consistently think of new ones than it seems. However, I do quite like the idea and I think you can probably get a fair amount of traffic for challenges that involve big clubs (with big fanbases) such as Liverpool etc and the fact that they are in a lower league is a good proposition to the many people that like the challenge of bringing someone up through the leagues.

I still don't know how I feel about weekly challenges in general. Thats VERY frequent and it'd be tricky to keep interest up. I think that people will struggle to enter every week, or rather find it impossible to take part in each one. Perhaps the relative dying out of the monthly challenges proves that that may be too long an amount of time. So I'd say try and do a new one fortnightly, or around about 2-3 weeks.

I like the idea, but I would feel a bit strange if it was well over 100 years into the future, 2186 is nearer to 200! By that time, all traces in the game of the footballing world as we know it are almost certainly gone. That is why I would prefer the idea if it was perhaps at a maximum of 40 years into the future, say 2050 yeah, because then at least you can still relate to the game somewhat as people you know might still be about in teams' records and favoured personnel, or there might be some players who are very young at the start who are now managers etc. I'd feel a bit strange entering a completely alien world, but if you do it right, challenges throughout time or something (lol sounds a bit epic) could be quite good.

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Guest roberto922

Guest roberto922

Ok, thanks for the feedback, I think I'll do as you said and do it fortnightly, the thing is though that alot of people could struggle to get Liverpool up in 2 weeks. I uploaded the first one overnight so I might put it on about 5-6 when the traffics highest. I've got a spain game in 2025 that I also uploaded overnight so I'll keep it at that, Barca in the bottom division:eek:.

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Guest roberto922

No because these will be ''Football - The future'' where as the majority of Dafuges challenges will be based on 2007/08, anyway Daf said that it's fine to do whatever we want for 08 because he's not starting it until FM 09.

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Anybody got any feedback for my challenge idea other than Frazza Pee's?

I don't want to start it without people saying its a good idea, because I'm really not sure.

I like the idea, but like you said since it is quite a long term challenge initial interest might be small.

Have you tested it yet? It might be worth experimenting with what sort of setups will make the possibility to move after getting sacked easiest, for example will some countries be easier to move to than others? It might be the case that the best combinations are countries which are close in proximity, such as England, Wales, N Ireland and Ireland.

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Yeah, I'm in the process of experimenting with it at the moment but obviously there's only so far I can go in the short term. Semi-Pro seems to a decent reputation to start with from what I've seen so far: I managed to get the Macclesfield job when I applied for it (League 2) but not the Leyton Orient one (League 1) so I think that transfers across other big leagues well. I will try and do a run through of the whole thing, seeing how deeply the whole "being sacked" thing affects your employment prospects.

The trouble is whether its worth all the bother going through that if no-one's going to play the challenge, though admittedly there's been a couple of people who like the idea, committing yourself to it is something else entirely. I think that it is different in its way, the whole "getting sacked" as part of a challenge and being bad on purpose really hasn't been done before and I thought it might draw people in before the actual main part of the challenge in theory draws them in. It really is like a little side part, with really as much relevance and importance as say, the holidaying at the start of Gundo's or your challenges. I will experiment with it now, but if over the next few days there's not much more interest in it, I don't know if I'll bother.

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Hmm, I'm somewhat re-thinking my idea for the "Flee to a Small Nation" or whatever because of getting a job issues. Semi-Pro is good enough, but annoyingly it seems that sometimes it can take a long while to get a job. Also, starting unemployed is annoying in that there are manager-less clubs e.g. Stafford that will always give you the job if you apply at the start as a Semi-Pro, and having everyone as the same team would be annoying. Therefore, I propose instead that they pick a team from the Big Nation's Third Tier to start off with.

The issue with this, is Holland. Of the Big Nations, England/France/Germany/Italy have 4+, Spain/Portugal have 3, which fits fine, but Holland's 2 is quite annoying. I don't know if I can really count them as a small nation considering the challenge that is taking over from PSV/Ajax/Somewhat Feyenoord dominance, so perhaps it would be better to omit them from the challenge completely sadly...

So that would sort the issue of getting your initial job, but I think the small nations could be in need of dividing further... I think that there are some where you will really struggle to get a job after being sacked, so it might be best to divide them into 3 different difficulties of nations, and then you pick one of each to help you progress through the career more clearly. I'm not convinced that this effort is being lost on me though because of a lack of interest/its getting too complicated. Perhaps if I can sort my ideas out, and post an actual thread at a high-traffic time, then the interest will rise.

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How are people finding the loading times for screenshots on this forum?

I've always encouraged people to save them as JPEGs since they load faster but I've noticed that on my connection there isn't much difference in speed when loading a PNG and the quality is slightly better with those.